


A monster of your own design

by Baryshnikov



Series: Where Monsters lie [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Monsters, Pandora's Box, Soul Selling, Unhealthy Relationships, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: We each design our own monsters.





	A monster of your own design

**Author's Note:**

> From Harry's perspective.

People say we design our own monsters, take what scares us the most about ourselves and pour into a box. We do not look too carefully at that box, for at the time, we do not care what festers inside, what insidious creature is forming in the dark. We only care when we have been irresponsible, and we have let that nasty thing inside, out into the world. 

What people say is true. 

You know that because you let your monster loose. 

~

You had been building your monster for as long as you could remember, slowly crafting it deep in your subconscious. You gave it your face because you know, whatever you say, that you’re scared of yourself, that you’re scared of what you could do to the people that you love. You’d like to think that you wouldn’t ever become like the antagonist to your story, but at the same time, he was you once, a long time ago. Your monster looks like him and it looks like you, the best and worst of both of you, a horrid fusion, your benevolence and his malevolence mixing, mingling, merging into something that has his smile and your eyes, his voice and your mannerisms. It was beautiful and terrible just hiding on the fringe, lurking on that black haze at the edge of your consciousness, waiting for you to make a mistake. It didn’t matter that you could not truly see him, whenever that monster smiled you could feel such pain digging its way deep into your skull, forcing your skin to break and your bones to crack. That smile alone had you lying on your bed, wrapped in your covers begging him to leave you alone, and he did, for a while. 

While he disappeared from your sight, he never really went away, he only lurked and grew stronger in the dark, he gorged himself on the things that you were scared of, swallowed down all your fears and regurgitate them as true nightmares. It was you who brought him back out into the light. One day you let him out, through your own stupidity, your own naivety. You did not understand what he wanted, and he said he wanted nothing. You with your childish heart believed him, just a little of your soul and you could have someone who really understood you standing by your side, that was what he said inside your head. You shouldn’t have listened to his silky words, you shouldn’t have wanted what he was offering, but you did, oh how you did. That just made it worse because you could not tell your friends what you did because they would ask why, and you had no reason to give. No reason that they would like to hear. All you wanted was someone who knew what it was like to be different, who knew what it was like to the special one, earmarked like a sheep from your very birth. He understood, he was the only one who ever could, because he was you in a way, and with him, you wouldn’t be alone. 

You should have known. You should have realised. You should have seen that he had all of hell’s demons under his perfect skin, that leviathans swam in his eyes and behemoths spilled from his mouth. He might have looked like an angel when he solidified before you, but he was deceptive, he knew you’d like what you saw and that you’d let him come ever so close, and you did. You let him spill out from the haze and fill your world with unimaginable wonder. It was wrong that the only time you ever felt truly loved was when he was by your side, for you knew it was wrong because there were so many people who loved you, and yet they were nothing compared to him. Their love couldn’t possibly rival what he gave you, even though all he gave you was his presence. Perhaps it was because he was you and you were him. The two of you understood each other more intimately than anyone else ever could, and when he stood so close to you, something akin to manna-dew slid through your blood, a warmth, a safety, a deep need you barely knew existed was sated and you felt, for the first time in your life, a contentment. Then he left you all alone again. 

You had never felt a loss so poignantly, it was as though a part of your stomach had been wrenched out, that your body had been torn apart, that you had been stabbed and were now lying on a cold floor in an empty room slowly bleeding out. Your friends said you had changed, got suddenly so cold, so hollow as though you’d lost half your soul. You wanted to tell them then. You really did. But you didn’t, you couldn’t, he’d stolen something from your heart, maybe it was your heart itself, whatever it was, he’d taken it to wherever he’d gone, and you were left wanting and needing and hating yourself for so badly aching for a monster that looked like you. You could still hear him if you listened carefully at night when the rest of the world was bathed in silence, then you could just hear the sound of his smile, the hum of his body like he was made of wasps, and maybe he was because he had certainly stung you and left you all alone. 

He returned when you begged him to, when you pleaded and told him he could have anything he wanted if only he’d come back to you, return whatever he took and make you feel whole again. He came with that smile that split your head in two, boring a hole right into your brain, a white cold sharpness that sliced you open. It was then, in the darkness, with his hand against your cheek and that nasty smile slashed across his face that you first saw the monster that you’d made. The mask he wore, the one you asked in a shaking voice whether he’d remove and let you see his true face. His smile had spread too wide, white teeth whiter and skin stretched. For just a second he gave you a glimpse of what lay beneath his gorgeous visage, just a glimpse of all the fear and anger and hatred and worry that you’d poured into him, all the darkness that you held within your soul that you’d so kindly given to him when you were young and stupid. He said he was happy, and you should be too, he was your doppelganger, your evil twin if you wanted to be clichéd, he was all the bad, so you didn’t have to be. He was a monster, but he was your monster. 

From then on, he lay next to you, a hand in your hair, fingers too cold and long nails that scratched your scalp. He said you were special, he said that few were brave enough to let their monsters run free in the world, that even fewer would lie with them, and next to none would crave them as you did. He said he almost felt sorry for taking away all your malice, for never giving _you_ the opportunity to grow into him, but he was smiling as he said it, smiling in such a way that you think he was happy with the way it all turned out. In those moments, when it was just the two of you, you keep your eyes shut as though that would make him go away, as though if you cannot see him then he doesn’t exist. But he does. You can hear him breathing. The constant rise and fall of his chest, and that ever-present hum of the flies and wasps and other horrid little insects that inhabit his rotting body. Even when you turn away from him, you can still feel the coldness of his fingers against your wrist because he doesn’t like to let you go. He is always cold. He has no warmth because he is not a human being, he is a monster, but at least he is your monster. 

You know by now that you cannot escape your monster, not when he hunts with such precision, a meticulousness that always renders him successful. He lies beside you every night, you under the covers and him on top of them until you let him under with you, let him lie so close. He doesn’t even need to touch you for your skin to buzz and crawl like the insects that make up him are spreading under your skin. Eventually, you get used to his fingers on the back of your neck, his nails digging into your wrist and drawing pretty patterns. He makes you bleed when he wants and you let him, there is nothing you can do about him, all you can hope to do it keep him distracted, keep him occupied with you in the hope that he will not stray to others. So, you let him make you bleed. You let the red stain your sheets as a reminder of what you have done. You even let him kiss your fingers and tell you that he loves you. You do not return the compliment. Until you do. Until you find yourself waiting for your monster’s cold hands against your forearm, and his nails burrowing into your skin, because whatever others might say: that he is a monster, that he only wants to take advantage, that he only wants to grow stronger, at least he is your monster 

~ 

People say that we love our own monsters, that deep in our subconscious, it is what we are most scared of that attracts us. We do not see our monster’s flaws, all we see is ourselves, our wonderful selves that can do no wrong because at our cores we’re all narcissists really. We only care for ourselves, and we will protect ourselves to the very end, even when we know we shouldn’t. 

What people say is true. 

You know that because you love your monster too.


End file.
